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Sustained viral activity of epstein-Barr virus contributes to cellular immortalization of lymphoblastoid cell lines

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Molecules and Cells

Abstract

EBV-transformed lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs) are used as a resource for human genetic, immunological, and pharmacogenomic studies. We investigated the biological activity of 20 LCL strains during continuous long-term subculture up to a passage number of 160. Out of 20 LCL strains, 17 proliferated up to a passage number of 160, at which point LCLs are generally considered as “immortalized”. The other three LCL strains lost the ability to proliferate at an average passage number of 41, during which these LCLs may have undergone cellular crisis. These non-immortal LCL strains exhibited no telomerase activity, decreased EBV gene expression, and a lower copy number of the EBV genome and mitochondrial DNA when compared with immortal LCLs. Thus, this study suggests that sustained EBV viral activity as well as telomerase activity may be required for complete LCL immortalization.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Korea BioBank, Center for Genome Science, Korea National Institute of Health, Korea Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Seoul, 122-701, Korea

    Jae-Pil Jeon, Hye-Young Nam, Sung-Mi Shim & Bok-Ghee Han

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  1. Jae-Pil Jeon
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  2. Hye-Young Nam
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  3. Sung-Mi Shim
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  4. Bok-Ghee Han
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Correspondence to Bok-Ghee Han.

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These authors contributed equally to this work.

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Jeon, JP., Nam, HY., Shim, SM. et al. Sustained viral activity of epstein-Barr virus contributes to cellular immortalization of lymphoblastoid cell lines. Mol Cells 27, 143–148 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10059-009-0018-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10059-009-0018-y

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